A Study on the Interaction Between Fan Community and Game

Developer in the Process of Game Development and Its Impact

in the Digital Era: A Case Study of Baldur's Gate 3

Xiao Xiao

College of Foreign Languages, Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai, 201306, China

Keywords: Fan Community, Community Influence, Two-Way Interaction.

Abstract: With the rapid development of digital technology, the role of the fan community in game development is

becoming more and more prominent. Taking Baldur's Gate 3 as a case study, this study analyzes in depth the

two-way interaction process between Larian Studios and the player community in the feedback mechanism.

This study also uses thematic analysis to interpret the content of the interaction between Larian Studios and

players on the official forums, and further explores the challenges posed by this mode of interaction, such as

the complexity of the feedback screening, the fragmentation of the development process, and the restriction

of the developer's freedom of creativity. The findings provide new perspectives on the understanding of the

interaction mechanism between the fan community and developer, as well as important references for future

game design and development practices on how to strike a balance between satisfying players' needs and

maintaining developers' originality.

1 INTRODUCTION

In today's society where digital technology is

booming, fan communities are gradually expanding

their voice on major media platforms. They are no

longer just consumers, but have become content

creators and feedback providers. Game fan

communities are no exception. They establish an

interactive channel with developers through game

platforms. This two-way communication profoundly

impacts optimizing game content, improving player

satisfaction, and adjusting development direction.

Both domestic and international studies on the

interaction between the game fan community and

game developers have made certain progress. Most

domestic studies analyze the impact of interaction on

fan communities based on the theory of participatory

culture. For example, one researcher points out that

the domestic mobile game Onmyoji indirectly

supports and maintains community vitality by

establishing the official QQ group, namely a virtual

space, during development. This interaction

enhanced players' sense of belonging and identity,

formed a decentralized support system, and

strengthened the connection between players (Ying,

2018). This study also shows the increasing

prevalence of fan involvement in game development

through feedback, reflecting the growing influence of

fan communities in game development.

Overseas scholars have explored this issue more

systematically and theoretically, mainly focusing on

the impact of interaction on game developers. As

early as 2011, some researchers observed that

developers are provided with opportunities to gain

inspiration online by fan communities (Gidhagen et

al., 2011). In recent years, studies have shown that

game distribution platforms, like Steam, proactively

offer continuous updates to players and are willing to

encourage game owners to post commodity news to

promote interaction (Svelch, 2019). These studies

reflect the intention of game developers to improve

their games by integrating player feedback, as well as

the increased importance developers place on fan

communities.

This study takes the development process of the

video game Baldur's Gate 3 as a case study to analyze

the specific manifestations of this interaction in the

actual development process. This study also adopts a

thematic analysis to explore the theme of two-way

communication between fan community and

developer and its impact by interpreting in detail the

specific content of fan feedback in official forums and

exploring how it affects the actual outcome of game

design.

Xiao, X.

A Study on the Interaction Between Fan Community and Game Developer in the Process of Game Development and Its Impact in the Digital Era: A Case Study of Baldur’s Gate 3.

DOI: 10.5220/0013961900004912

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Innovative Education and Social Development (IESD 2025), pages 11-16

ISBN: 978-989-758-779-5

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Existing related studies can be categorized into three

types according to different emphases. The first type

of research focuses on fan communities, which in the

early stage focused on the construction of community

identity and later shifted to the user interaction mode

within the community. An early domestic study

illustrated the construction process of fan

communities through case studies and interviews, in

which fan communities would internally regulate

members' behaviors through clear rules and

regulations to ensure that new members could quickly

integrate and identify with the community's norms,

thus expanding the scale of fan communities (Wang,

2017). In another recent foreign study, the researcher

studied topic interactions in fan communities through

Cyber-ethnography, pointing out that interactions

within the community enhance fans' sense of

belonging and loyalty to the community (Popova,

2020). It can be seen that most of the existing studies

focus on the self-organization of fan communities and

their internal culture, and fewer explore the external

connections of fan communities and their impact.

The second type of research focuses on the game

developers' focus in the game development process.

Most of the researchers have explored the two

perspectives of game development technology and

game content management. From the perspective of

game development technology, researchers test

different game engines to find the best solution to

improve the graphics performance and gameplay.

They argue that the emergence of the game engine

Unity has lowered the threshold of game

development, enabling game developers to present

games in a more creative and immersive way (Nicoll

et al., 2019). In terms of game content management,

when designing a game, developers must maintain a

balance between entertainment parts and serious parts

containing educational, health, and other purposes. A

well-presented effect is achieved by ensuring that the

serious part does not detract from the player's gaming

experience, while at the same time, the gaming

experience must not undermine the effectiveness of

realizing the serious part (Caserman et al., 2020). It

can be seen that existing research tends to focus on

exploring internal game factors, and lacks in-depth

exploration of interactive feedback from the fan

community, which is also an important external

factor.

The third type of research focuses on the

relationship between fan communities and game

development. In recent years, researchers have

argued that this interaction plays an important role in

the game development process, not only shaping the

player's gaming experience but also influencing the

direction of game design (Livingston et al., 2011). It

has also been shown that feedback from fan

communities can significantly influence game design

decisions (Burger-Helmchen & Cohendet, 2011).

However, most of the existing studies have focused

on the positive effects of community participation,

and fewer have analyzed the pressure or design

conflicts that player feedback may bring.

Existing studies have explored the interaction

between the fan community and game developers to

some extent, but obvious research gaps exist. First,

existing studies usually focus on the unilateral

motives of fan communities or game developers, and

rarely build bridges between the two. Second,

existing studies mostly rely on interview data, which

is easily influenced by personal opinions or emotional

factors, resulting in a lack of objectivity and an

inability to fully reflect the facts. This limits the

understanding of the complex interactions between

fans and developers, and leads to an incomplete study

of the positive and negative impacts.

This study focuses on the two-way

communication between the fan community and

game developers in the development process and its

impact in the digital era, mainly researching the main

question of how two-way communication affects the

design decisions in the game development process.

This study aims to fill the aforementioned gap, and

provide new perspectives on fan-developer

interactions as well as references for game

developers' future design decisions.

In summary, the interaction between the fan

community and game developers is an area that

deserves in-depth research. Although existing studies

have provided important perspectives, there is still a

need to explore the specific mechanisms by which fan

communities influence game development. This

study will examine the main question of how two-

way communication influences design decisions

during game development, laying the foundation for

further research on this topic.

3 METHODOLOGY

3.1 Theoretical Framework

The concept of game community is so broad that

some researchers have subdivided it into three

different types, namely developer type, player type

and tester type. First, there is the developer type,

IESD 2025 - International Conference on Innovative Education and Social Development

which consists of users with high technical skills. In

some cases, developers choose to develop certain

parts of their games with the help of this type of user

community, which often allows for direct interaction

with the developers. Next is the player type. They

tend to use specific techniques or tools to enhance or

fine-tune the game, or to create additional content,

making their work available to other users in the form

of mods to enhance the game experience. At the same

time, they also offer help to other players on major

platforms. There is usually more interaction within

the communities and less direct contact with the

developers. Finally, there is the tester type, which

consists of users who test the game during the

development phase. Their main duty is to look for

bugs or inaccuracies in the game program, as well as

to make suggestions for game content (Burger-

Helmchen & Cohendet, 2011). This study is based on

this theoretical framework and uses the community of

tester type as the main object of study.

3.2 Study Design

In order to analyze the two-way communication

process between the fan community and game

developer in the process of game development in the

digital era and its specific impact, this study adopts

qualitative research, choosing Baldur's Gate 3 as a

case study and selecting the interactive content

between the game's tester community and the

developer, Larian Studios, as the main text for

analysis. The data of this study comes from the posts

in the Suggestions & Feedback section under the

classification of Baldur's Gate 3 in the Larian Forums.

The number of replies is used as a filtering criterion

to sort the posts in descending order, and the posts

with several replies higher than one hundred are

analyzed in a focused manner. Based on the themes

and trends of the interactions in the posts, this study

analyzes the impact of the feedback from the tester-

type community on the direction of the game's

development.

4 TWO-WAY COMMUNICATION

BETWEEN FAN COMMUNITY

AND GAME DEVELOPER IN

THE GAME DEVELOPMENT

PROCESS

4.1 Case Introduction

Baldur's Gate 3 is a role-playing game set in

Dungeons & Dragons created by Larian Studios. It

was released on October 6, 2020, as Early Access and

on August 3, 2023 for the full version. After the

release of Early Access, the game created a lot of

discussions within the player community, and a fan

community was formed based on the game. The fan

community provided feedback through various

platforms, including the official Larian Forums, and

Larian Studios made adjustments and changes based

on this feedback. In 2023, the game won several

awards for its great production. In 2024, the game was

also nominated for Best Community Support at the

Game Awards. This study considers it to be typical.

4.2 Interaction Mechanism

During the development of Baldur's Gate 3, the

interactions between the fan community and the

developer show the following two patterns: first, the

developer is usually the first initiator of the

interaction; Second, the fan community is usually the

first to provide feedback. Developer-directed

interactions usually take the form of news

announcements, development updates, and patch

updates, to keep in touch with players at all stages of

game development, collect feedback, and guiding

player expectations. In contrast, the feedback

provided by the fan community is usually in the form

of player reviews, community discussions and bug

reports. Players are empowered to directly influence

early game content and functionality at all stages of a

game's development, especially during the testing

phase.

From the timeline, the game developer takes the

lead in releasing a version of the game. After playing

the game, players post their suggestions and feedback

through relevant platforms, which constitutes a basic

interaction. After seeing the feedback, the developer

will adopt the reasonable content, and the adjusted

content will be sent back to the players in the form of

a patch. After the release of the patch, players will

again make suggestions on the adjusted version,

which constitutes a cycle of interaction. For example,

Larian Studios released the Early Access of Baldur's

Gate 3 at an early stage and built Suggestions and

Feedback section in the official forums to collect

feedback from players. In a post titled Focused

Feedback: Spells, the posting player offered a

detailed analysis and suggestions for spell skills in the

game. He compared the spells in the Dungeons &

Dragons worldview to those in the game, listed the

skills that were missing from the game, and suggested

that some of them - such as Cloud of Daggers - be

implemented. The forum's administrators locked and

A Study on the Interaction Between Fan Community and Game Developer in the Process of Game Development and Its Impact in the

Digital Era: A Case Study of Baldur’s Gate 3

topped the post after seeing it, signaling the

importance of this. In a subsequent hotfix update,

Larian did indeed add some of the skills mentioned

above. In a post titled Spell timing and other spell

issues, a player suggested that Dagger Cloud's spell

duration was too long, and gave a specific setting for

Dagger Cloud in the context of Dungeons & Dragons,

which he hoped Larian would modify. This started a

cycle of interaction and feedback.

Baldur's Gate 3 has gone through multiple

feedback loops during its development, with each

round of feedback pushing the developers to make

adjustments to the game, from rudimentary player

suggestions to the latest bug fixes. And as the

development process progressed, the content of the

interactions between developers and players changed.

Initial communication focused on adjustments to the

game's framework and basic design. As development

progressed, player feedback became more in-depth

and specific, involving all aspects of the game, such

as character design, combat mechanics, and plot

pacing. At a later stage, more technical details and

optimization directions became the focus of

discussion. Through multiple updates and fixes, the

developer further optimized the game content on the

basis of absorbing player feedback, thus ensuring the

high quality of the final game version.

Specifically, through the early test and repeated

polishing, Baldur's Gate 3’s framework and basic

settings tended to be rigorous and solid. In the months

after its official release, the main direction of game

patches 1 to 3 was the plot flow and combat gameplay

adjustment. In 2024, the game patches mainly

focused on optimization and repair, and patch 6 made

rich optimization adjustments to the interface UI and

character details. With the release of Patch 7, the

game itself was almost complete. As the timeline

went on, the content of the game patches was

gradually refined from macro to micro, implying a

steady improvement in the quality of the game, which

could not be separated from the active

communication between the fan community and

Larian Studios.

4.3 The Influence of Interaction

Admittedly, this two-way interaction model has

significant affordance between both the fan

community and the game developer. For the fan

community, players are able to express their personal

preferences, suggestions, and expectations through

interaction, prompting developers to customize the

game experience. This interaction not only allows

players to feel that they influence the direction of the

game's content and design, but also enhances their

sense of belonging to the game. For game developers,

this interaction allows them to identify problems at an

early stage, avoiding tedious post-release fixes, and

patch updates can respond more quickly to player

needs, thus improving game quality and player

satisfaction. In addition, by actively interacting with

players, developers demonstrate the importance they

place on player feedback, boosting player trust and

loyalty, promoting a word-of-mouth effect, and

attracting more new players to join. However, there

are two sides to the coin, and this model also has

certain constraints.

First, from the perspective of the interaction

model itself, the constraint is reflected in the

complexity of feedback screening and information

integration. With the development of information

technology and the increasing popularity of media

platforms, traditional tree-structure network

communication has been replaced (Choi et al., 2015).

Researchers have studied the information patterns

exhibited on popular platforms, and they have

concluded that individuals are now unable to cope

with the overwhelming amount of data that continues

to grow on such platforms (Han et al., 2014). This is

also true for developers. On social platforms, only a

small number of actively vocal fans or opinion

leaders are likely to have their suggestions taken on

board by developers, which can lead to a tendency for

developers to ignore the less active but still

importantly opinionated player base. For example, in

a post titled Early Access Feedback/Suggestions |

Spoilers, the poster made nine detailed suggestions

for the game's Early Access, most of which, such as

character appearance and spell types, fit the general

needs of players. In addition to this, he brought up a

less discussed point, namely item count balance. He

argued that the excessive number of items in the

game, such as scrolls, potions, and explosives, should

be avoided to prevent players from using them

uncontrollably, as a way to enhance the preciousness

and strategy of the items. However, this post did not

gain much discussion, with only 256 views and 0

replies, while in the actual gameplay, the supplies

were still abundant, and even often overflowed.

Second, from the perspective of the game

development model, the constraint is reflected in the

fragmentation of the development process and the

decline in development efficiency. Traditional game

development usually follows an established linear

schedule, including conceptual design, prototype

testing, formal development and final release,

emphasizing the structured and staged nature of the

development process. In today's digital era, however,

IESD 2025 - International Conference on Innovative Education and Social Development

players instantly offer suggestions and opinions

through social media, forums, or in-game feedback

channels. This real-time feature conflicts with the

traditional game development cycle. The traditional

waterfall development is no longer adaptable, and

developers are forced to turn to fragmented agile

development. Every time they collect feedback and

make adjustments, developers need to pause the

original work plan and reallocate resources and time,

which will, to a certain extent, reduce the game's

development efficiency. As a matter of fact, the Early

Access of Baldur's Gate 3 was in operation for nearly

three years, and the release of the full version on the

PlayStation 5 platform has been postponed from

August 31st to September 6th. This shows the

magnitude of the workload.

Third, from the perspective of game design

decisions, the constraint is reflected in limited

creation. Developers' over-reliance on fan feedback

may limit their expression, leading them to make

adjustments only within the framework of players'

expectations, without daring to make big innovations

or risky attempts. Some innovative changes in-game

updates may even be abandoned because they do not

meet the needs of mainstream players. For example,

in Hotfix 21 update in early March 2024, Baldur's

Gate 3 changed the development of the romance

between Minthara and Dark Urge. If Dark Urge is

free from the control of his father god, Bhaal,

Minthara will break up with him. This upset many

fans and the forums were filled with opposition for a

while. Although some professional game executives

such as Rhiannon Bevan and James Troughton

pointed out that the change was justified in terms of

characterization, Larian subsequently claimed that it

was an unintentional change and patched it

(Bevan,2024; Troughton,2024). The question of

whether or not this change was intentional has been

under debate, but it is possible to find that the fan

community sometimes generates extreme feedback

due to strong favoritism or antipathy towards a

character or storyline. This type of feedback is

contagious but sometimes irrational, and developers

who pay too much attention to and pander to this

negative sentiment may result in increased pressure to

weigh the balance between satisfying player needs

and adhering to original design, and characterizations

that lose their original conflict and dramatic tension,

further affecting the game's artistry and narrative

depth.

5 CONCLUSION

Game development in the digital age is facing a

profound change in the interaction model between

players and developers. By analyzing the case of

Baldur's Gate 3, this study explores the mechanism of

two-way communication between the fan community

and the developer and its impact on the game

development process. The study shows that this

interaction model not only changes the traditional

development path, but also pushes the development

process in a more dynamic and open direction.

However, the challenges beneath it can not be ignored

either. As discussed in Section 4, interactions face

limitations such as underrepresentation of feedback,

development fragmentation, and limited innovation.

It is essential to understand these issues and actively

seek solutions.

The research in this paper provides empirical

support for academics in the field of user engagement

and co-design, filling the gaps in existing research on

the specific processes and limitations of two-way

interaction. It also provides food for thought for

actual game developers to find a balance between

managing player feedback and maintaining creative

freedom, namely reflecting on and improving the

management of interactions in order to avoid over-

reliance on player feedback and to ensure creative

freedom and the long-term competitiveness of their

products.

Although this study delves into the two-way

communication between the fan community and the

game developers during the development of Baldur's

Gate 3 and its impact, there are still limitations. This

study only focuses on the single case of Baldur's Gate

3. Despite being a representative game, its interaction

patterns with other game projects may differ

significantly and cannot be fully representative of all

games. Second, this study mainly relies on the

feedback posts and player interaction data in the

official forums of Larian, and fails to

comprehensively cover all feedback channels. As a

result, the results of the study may not fully

demonstrate all voices of the fan community,

especially the views of silent players who have not

expressed their opinions in public forums.

Future research can explore the interaction

patterns between fan communities and developers

and their impacts on different types of games through

comparative analysis of multiple game cases to more

fully understand the universality and specificity of fan

community-developer interactions. It can also start

from the more specific topic of the mechanism of the

role of fans' emotional expression on game design

A Study on the Interaction Between Fan Community and Game Developer in the Process of Game Development and Its Impact in the

Digital Era: A Case Study of Baldur’s Gate 3

decisions, and analyze the process of influence in

detail.

In the future, the collaborative relationship

between fan communities and developers will play a

more important role in the game industry. Related

developers may pay attention to the long-term impact

of the interactive model on the development process,

actively adapt to this change, and seek a new balance

between development efficiency and creative

expression. It is hoped that a better integration

between fans and developers in the near future will

create vibrant and innovative games together, and

inject sustained momentum into the development of

the game industry.

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